FIG. 1 illustrates a diagram of a system 10 that includes a device 12, which may be a CD player, cassette player, DVD player, VCR, a cassette recorder, CD burner, a cellular telephone, wireless telephone and/or a combination thereof, operably coupled to headphones 14. The device 12 generates audio data that is transmitted to the headphones 14 via a left channel 20, ground 22 and a right channel 24. As such, the audio data may be provided to the headphones 14 as stereo data where left channel audio information is provided on left channel 20 and right channel audio information is provided on right channel 24 or the data may be provided as monotone audio where the same audio information is provided on both the left channel 20 and the right channel 24.
The headphone 14 may include a microphone 16 that captures audio data and provides the audio data to the device 12 via a separate wire connection labeled mic in 26. In addition, the headphones 14 may include a remote control input device 18. The type of remote control data produced by the remote control input device 18 will depend on the functionality of the device 12. For example, if device 12 is a CD player, the remote control information may be next track, pause, play, stop, volume, et cetera. Depending on the complexity of the remote control input device 18, the headphones 14 may include one to four additional wires to transmit remote control data to the device 12. These wires are labeled as remote control in 28.
The device 12 may also utilize the remote control in wires 28 to provide display information to the headphones 14. In such an embodiment, the headphones 14 would include a display for displaying such information. Display information would include, for example, volume settings, track number, et cetera. With the additional features of a microphone 16 and remote control device 18, multiple additional wires are needed to couple the headphones 14 to the device 12. The inclusion of extra wires adds to the cost, increases the complexity of manufacturing the headphones, and decreases the reliability of the headphone 14.
Therefore, a need exists for a method and apparatus that improves the processing of data and content data by a content processing device and a content display device.